IRCC announces new Express Entry stream for international physicians

On 8 December 2025, Minister of Immigration Lena Metlege Diab announced three new immigration measures to help international physicians more easily become permanent residents of Canada.

Detailed article on the system Express Entry.

New Express Entry stream

To be eligible under the new “Physicians with Canadian work experience” Express Entry stream, individuals must have accumulated at least 12 months of continuous full-time work experience (or the equivalent in part-time experience) in Canada within the last 3 years. This work experience must be in a single eligible occupation.

The target occupations under this new stream (and their corresponding National Occupational Classification (NOC) codes) are listed below:

• General practitioners and family physicians (31102);
• Specialist physicians (31101);
• Specialists in clinical and laboratory medicine (31100).

Invitations to Apply under this new stream will begin in early 2026.
This stream currently operates in parallel with all other existing Express Entry streams; however, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) programme priorities under the system often change in the new year.

IRCC’s current Express Entry stream for healthcare workers already targets physicians, as well as many other healthcare occupations such as nurses, dentists, optometrists, and others. It is currently unclear how the existing healthcare and social services stream will operate once the new stream announced today comes into effect.

Notably, the current healthcare occupation stream does not have a Canadian work experience requirement, only requiring candidates to have accumulated 6 months of work experience either in Canada or abroad.

Special intake allocation

The Government of Canada will also set aside 5,000 federal intake spots for provinces and territories to nominate licensed physicians with job offers.

These spots are in addition to the regular annual allocation for Provincial Nominee Program (PNP), meaning provincial immigration authorities can significantly increase the intake of foreign physicians for permanent resident nominations.

*Intake spots are detailed in the Canada Immigration Plan – and correspond to the number of people who will actually arrive in Canada as new permanent residents each year. These intake spots cover all Canadian immigration programmes (including Express Entry and PNP) and are categorised by programme category.

The government has not clarified which allocation the 5,000 special intake spots for physicians will be drawn from.

Expedited work permit processing

Physicians nominated by a province will benefit from expedited work permit processing within 14 days, allowing them to work while their permanent resident application is being finalised.

This is a significant reduction in work permit application processing from within Canada, which often takes many months to process and finalise before a new work permit is issued.

Update on the new programme on the government website at here.